Restaurants and other types of food establishments offer consumers a wide variety of food choices. One type of food product which is somewhat popular is soup. In most food establishments, the soup is either made from scratch or is prepared from a can containing the soup product. In the case of canned soup, the soup is either diluted with a particular amount of water and heated or is heated as is from the can. As might be expected, the preparation of soup from scratch or from a can and the subsequent serving of the soup has distinct disadvantages and drawbacks.
For example, in the case of canned soup, the entire contents of the can must be heated regardless of the number of servings desired. Similarly, in the case of soup made from scratch, a large quantity must be prepared. Invariably, a certain portion of the soup remains unused and oftentimes is discarded. Although it may be possible to save and later reheat unused portions of the soup, the quality of the soup may degrade over time with successive reheatings. Also, this manner of preparing large quantities of soup from which individual portions are then served is not well suited to portion control. The aforementioned problems are further compounded when more than one type of soup is served.
Another distinct disadvantage involves the amount of time necessary to prepare the soup. This becomes particularly problematic when the prepared amount of soup is finished before the close of business. In such a situation, it will either be necessary to prepare/heat an additional quantity of soup or inform the customers that soup is no longer available. In light of the foregoing, a need exists for a way of producing soup in a relatively quick and simple manner.